Keynote Speaker

Dr. Xiaoxu Yang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah. Dr. Yang received his BS in bioscience with honors at Beijing Normal University, completed his PhD studies in bioinformatics with honors at Peking University, and completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Yang's lab research interests include the development of methodologies to study germline and somatic mosaicism, as well as the use of genomic mosaicism to understand human development and diseases. 

Dr. Yang has developed computational tools such as DeepMosaic, the first Deep-learning-based mosaic variant caller without the need of matched controls, and MosaicBase, the first non-cancer mosaic variant knowledge base. He developed experimental methodologies such as PASM (Postzygotic Amplicon Sequencing for Mosaicism), mddPCR (micro-droplet digital PCR), MPAS (Massive Parallel Amplicon Sequencing), and scMPAS (single-nucleus MPAS), and further integrated them into MVBA (Mosaic Variant Barcode Analyses). 

Using these technologies he developed, Dr. Yang started the study of sperm mosaic mutations causing childhood neurological and psychiatric disorders. He was among the pioneers in the research of non-cancer germline and mosaicism in sperm, brain, and multiple human-derived tissues. He found sperm clonal mosaic mutations causing lifelong transmission risk for normal males. He and his lab also used mosaic mutations as developmental markers and first described left-right hemisphere genetic differences and dorsal inhibitory brain genetic lineages in normal human cortical development. They found mosaic genetic causes for multiple human diseases, such as malformations of cortical development, ALS, and epileptic syndromes. 

Beyond his scientific contributions, Dr. Yang received the NIH Pathway to Independence Award. He has published corresponding and/or first-author papers in Cell, Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Genetics, and many prestigious journals. Dr. Yang also serves as a member of the Utah Center for Genetic Discovery and the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

Lab: https://www.genetics.utah.edu/research/xiaoxu-yang

Email: [email protected]